Long, narrow and heavy

Expect GBR Challenge's new boat to be at one end of the design spectrum says Peter Bentley

So tomorrow is the big day. The result of all the testing, design and construction work undertaken by GBR Challenge over the past year will finally be revealed to the world. Well not quite.

Like every other America’s Cup Syndicate, GBR Challenge are incredibly careful about what they allow the public and more importantly the other teams to see. There is also the small matter that Friday’s ceremony is not a launching as such, but more of a naming ceremony. The result of all that hard labour will have neither a keel nor a rig in place by Friday. And don't expect to see too much of the boat. The plan is to have the hull canted over in a cradle with just the deck on show. Anything interesting will you can be sure be well hidden.

While the precise details of the design remain shrouded in secrecy, the basic concept of the boat is expected to be long, narrow and heavy with the measurement trade off coming in the form of sail area. One member of the design team who did not wish to be identified has confirmed to madforsailing that the new boat is “up at the end of the design range.” This should come as no surprise to anyone who has watched the development of the Auckland-specific boats, all of which have tended to the long, heavy, narrow corner of the design envelope.

Leaving aside all the hype about GBR Challenge being a low budget campaign just putting a foot in the water, it is clear that the Technical Design Group led by Derek Clark (pictured) have lacked little in the way of resources. To be sure, some of other campaigns have significantly higher budgets. Take out the six figure salaries that they have been paying their sailors for the last three years and substitute the lower pay and shorter campaign time for the British effort and it quickly becomes clear that some serious money has been spent on the design process. Indeed calls to any of the key designer’s offices for much of the last year have been fielded with the reply “he’s in Gosport” or “down at the Tank”.

GBR Challenge have not quite taken over DERA’s tank facility at Haslar in Gosport or monopolised the services of scientists and technicians from Southampton University’s Wolfson Unit but it sometimes seems like it. The tank and the staff are however very busy and it’s significant to remember that Team New Zealand continue to use the same facilities.

Nobody wants to say, but it appears that the team have built and tested between fifteen a twenty models at one quarter scale (the equivalent of building a 20’ boat). A similar amount of effort has been exerted on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) which in simple terms is computer modelling of hulls, rigs and keels.